A few weeks ago, I read Shakespeare's The Life and Death of King John, which presents an unfamiliar King John. Shakespeare’s John is a king in the fullness of his power. This isn't a greedy John or an effeminate John in the way he appears in the popular versions of the Robin Hood stories. This is just a John who isn't a good king.

The Prince John of the Robin Hood stories is a figure I'm more familiar with. Always a villain, he is greedy, scheming, and ineffectual. In the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn as Robin Hood), John is portrayed by Claude Rains as grasping but cowardly, unwilling to stand up to his brother Richard the Lionheart or do any of the actual work of capturing the outlaw who opposes him. In Disney's 1973 Robin Hood, John is an effeminate lion, sucking his thumb and calling for his mother in a portrayal that reads as deeply and uncomfortably homophobic in 2024.

I've seen both of these movies many, many, many times. The Adventures of Robin Hood in particular holds up well, with a focus on inequality and wonderful use of Technicolor. The costumes just plain pop and the Erich Korngold score is magnificent. Though it isn't perfect (see above re:homophobia), the Disney Robin Hood does a lovely job emphasizing the folk tale aspects of the Robin Hood legends, giving the score a country feel that pulls the stories into a very American idiom.

I have never read Shakespeare's King John before. I don't think many of us have. It is not performed as often, I think, as it was. Is it a good play? I don't think so, not really. It feels unfinished. The action is abrupt and is John the main character? I'm not sure Shakespeare knows. A few other figures get almost as much stage time as the king.

John is changeable to a degree that comes across as silly, with action that might work if handled well by an actor left feeling forced on the page. He isn't at all well rounded, his poisoning by a monk happens (bizarrely) offstage, and he is again and again upstaged by other characters with better speeches. In particular, the Lady Constance, mother of the ill-fated Prince Arthur (nephew to John and claimant to the English throne), is given lines that match up with some of Shakespeare's best:

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop.
To me and to the state of my great grief
Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

These lines, quoted here from Open Source Shakespeare, are beautiful, capturing so much of the magic of Shakespeare. They also summon more majesty than any given to King John, who never quite becomes master of his own play. When I started The Life and Death of King John, I hoped for a character who could offer more dimension than Robin Hood's opponent ever has. That isn't what I got, but the joys of moments like Constance's speech made the reading worth it.